Chapter 25 #2
Peter purses his lips in thought. “Maybe the Aeon’s Dagger was burned or melted down that night.”
“Why? By who?” I don’t ask him my last question: Why was my father’s other dagger on display at the school he went to in the first place?
“No clue,” Peter says. “Let’s ask the armorer.”
“Why didn’t he notice my blades were antiques when he fixed them for me my first week here?”
Peter gives me a slight eye roll. “Most of the weapons in here are antiques. This armory’s been collecting holy weapons like those since the thirteenth century. Not every armorer is going to catch every engraving like I can. They don’t call me Mr. Encyclopedia for nothing.”
“I don’t think Soph meant it as a cool new nickname,” Elliot advises.
“You don’t know that,” Sophia says, crossing her arms. “Knowledge is sexy.”
Peter chokes on nothing.
“Let’s just ask where the third one went,” Elliot offers. He’s a foot away from the armorer when I have a terrifying thought that sends me scrambling past a hanging set of greaves and yanking him back by his thick forearm.
“Wait,” I breathe, my hand wrapped around his arm.
Elliot narrows his eyes at me in confusion, and I don’t blame him.
But I can’t have Elliot telling the armorer that the Aeon’s Dagger used to belong to my family.
It doesn’t necessarily paint me as an aeon—anyone can own an antique—but I don’t want the information somehow tying me to my father.
Just in case someone at the school knew what he was.
Still, keeping this aeon secret from my friends is almost as difficult as keeping my hunter secret in my real life. And I don’t want to live like that anymore. I don’t want to live not trusting anyone.
“We can’t tell the armorer…or anyone, that the blade used to be in my family.”
“Why not?” Elliot asks.
But I can’t say the words. My heart is in my esophagus. I’m like a kid with stage fright. It’s all I can do to cut my gaze sidelong to Sophia. When her brows knit in silent question, I give her a slow nod and she and Peter wander over.
“She’s an aeon,” Sophia says so quietly I almost don’t hear the words.
Silence drowns the four of us. But Elliot and Peter don’t gasp. They don’t widen their eyes or take trembling steps away from me.
“That’s how you landed a hit on me when we sparred in the gym that first day,” Elliot says eventually, as if it’s been bothering him. But there’s still warmth in his eyes, and I’m so relieved my knees could buckle.
“How…” Peter’s voice is a rasp. “I didn’t think there were any left.”
“Just me,” I say weakly. “That I know of, at least.”
“Nobody can know,” Sophia reiterates. As if they don’t know how dangerous I am. How much danger this knowledge puts them in.
“We’ll protect your secret with our lives,” Elliot says. From anyone else, it would feel dramatic, but when he grasps my hand, his calloused palm warm around my knuckles, I know he means it without an ounce of hyperbole. “You can bet on it.”
“Thank you.” I laugh, swallowing a lump of emotion as it rises in my throat.
When I look at Peter, he’s still a little shell-shocked.
I try to hide the pleading in my eyes, but he must pick up on it anyway, because he says, “Viv…You—all of you guys—you’re my family.
The only family I have left, maybe. I’d never tell a soul.
” He nods to himself as if to get his mind back on track, though I know he’ll be doing copious amounts of research on aeons later today.
“But you really should ask the armorer where the dagger went. Maybe say you want to check it out? That’s what the blades in this section are for.
It’s like Harker’s version of renting high-tech equipment. ”
“Okay. That’s a good idea,” I tell him, pulling myself together too. “I’ll be right back.”
When I get to the counter, I do just that. “Hi. I wanted to check out the dagger in the glass case that has the jaguar on it, but it seems to be in use already?”
The armorer greets me with an easy smile. Not the look of someone who thinks a prized piece of Harker weaponry has been destroyed. “That was checked out a few days ago.”
“Oh shoot.” I feign casual disappointment. “Can I ask by who?”
“Let me check the logs.” The armorer flips through a massive leather tome, and I wait, foot tapping until I force myself still.
“Here you go,” he says.
Finally. “Who was it?”
“Kitty Briggs. She was good with her rentals this summer. Will be back within the week, I’m sure.”
A trickle of dread slips down my spine. “Great. When did she check it out?”
“Looks like…Friday night.”
The night of the zombie spell. And that’s…not possible. Kitty had left school long before then.
His brows crease. “You okay?”
“Do you remember opening the case for her?” I will my voice not to tremble.
The armorer scratches the back of his neck. “I don’t, actually. She must have been with a faculty member. Most of them have keys to that case.”
A rushing sound fills my ears. “Oh well,” I say with as much false ease as I can muster. “Thanks anyway.”
“You want to check out a different one? There’s a beautiful Argentium silver dirk that—”
It’s all I can do not to sprint away from him. “No thanks.”
I’m sweating by the time I make it back to my friends.
“You solve anything, Sherlock?” Elliot asks.
“Actually,” I say, dragging them out with me, “kind of the opposite.”